Review by Booklist Review
Crime-fiction fans are treated to a bogo here, two crime fighters for the price of one. The lead is Dugoni's series hero, Charles Jenkins, an aging and battered CIA operative sent to Moscow to trace a sleeper agent gone ominously silent. One night he witnesses a crime. One of the perpetrators is the son of a vicious gang boss, so suddenly Jenkins is of interest to thugs as well as the spy community. A startling point-of-view shift then changes the focus to Dugoni's second lead, Akhie Mishkin, a Moscow investigator so good his bosses can't wait to be rid of him. He makes his Sherlockian bones right off, spotting the beer-bottle clue at the Jenkins crime scene, and much of the novel is spent maneuvering to bring these two bloodhounds together. The emotional range here is unusually rich in an action-oriented thriller, and while adding texture, it also stalls the narrative occasionally. Still, this is a solid thriller, with interesting people and fascinating dope about tradecraft. It creates an appetite for a sequel with--heresy!--more Mishkin, less Jenkins.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Dugoni's electrifying third espionage thriller featuring CIA agent Charles Jenkins (after 2020's The Last Agent) opens with Jenkins hanging from a hook in a meat market in Irkutsk, Russia, where his interrogators are threatening to put him through a meat grinder. Flashbacks reveal how he got there. In recent years, Jenkins has been part of a CIA operation involving seven Russian women who were raised to be American spies. Five of the so-called sisters have by now been killed or exfiltrated, and the CIA dispatches Jenkins to Russia to rescue the remaining pair. On his first night in Moscow, Jenkins goes to a bar, where he sees two men mistreating a woman. He confronts the men outside in an alley, and in the ensuing fracas one of the two ends up dead. The now compromised Jenkins goes on the run, the target of a senior Russian investigator, the Russian mafia, and the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency. Many riveting, hairbreadth escapes follow as he remains intent on accomplishing his mission. This entry works as a standalone, but newcomers will scramble to read the earlier books. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Seven Russian women are recruited to infiltrate their own government hierarchy and pass information to the CIA. Some of these women have been in place for decades, but eventually some of them are discovered. As a result, several have been tortured and killed. Charles Jenkins comes out of retirement to save one of the remaining Russian agents, who is about to be exposed. Jenkins is on a Soviet kill list, so he must act with extreme caution. His risky plan is successful, until he gets involved in a brawl, which provokes the Russian government, the Russian Mafia, and the local Moscow police to go after him. When the Mafia catches him, only a convoluted series of deals and paybacks can save him. This is the third book in this best-selling "Charles Jenkins" series. Dugoni creates a hero with unassailable morals and a cast of characters whose motivations run the gamut. Narrator Edoardo Ballerini reads both male and female characters well, providing appropriate Russian accents and pronunciations of Russian words. VERDICT Listeners of spy novels and Dugoni fans will enjoy this audiobook.--Joanna M. Burkhardt
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
On-and-off CIA agent Charles Jenkins returns to Russia still again in the hope of rescuing a well-hidden agent threatened with exposure and execution. Now that Jenkins' station chief, Carl Emerson, has betrayed several of the others, Maria Kulikova is one of the last of the seven sisters raised from birth as American moles. She's risen to the position of director of the FSB Secretariat by winning the confidence of Dmitry Sokalov, deputy director of counterintelligence, and indulging his masochistic sexual tastes. Learning that the FSB has launched Operation Herod to identify and liquidate the last two sisters, Jenkins' handler, Matt Lemore, dispatches him to Moscow to rescue Kulikova and Zenaida Petrekova. Before he can make contact with either one, Jenkins impulsively intervenes to save a prostitute being beaten in an alley outside a bar. Within moments, Eldar Velikaya, the assailant, is dead, and his mother, Mafia leader Yekaterina Velikaya, is baying for blood. Since Jenkins left his fingerprints behind, Moscow criminal investigator Arkhip Mishkin is after him too. So is Sokalov, whose shame at his manipulation by Kulikova is matched only by his terror that she'll be identified as his mistress. Sokalov wants Kulikova killed in a way that will conceal his involvement with her; the FSB wants Jenkins alive so that they can swap him for two Russian agents who tried to kill a high-profile defector the CIA had settled in Virginia; Yekaterina Velikaya wants revenge most bloody. Dugoni, who's far too canny to set up all these chases and just wait to see who wins, keeps multiplying the competing loyalties and moral gray zones they reveal till your head spins. Moral: It's better to have dozens of enemies hot on your tail than only one. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
